Entertainment

LinkedIn Finally Launches Its Android App

LinkedIn has apps on iPhone and BlackBerry, but for years it has ignored the fast-growing Android platform. That finally changes today with the launch of the LinkedIn for Android Beta application.

The app, available starting today, can be downloaded by anybody who joins its LinkedIn for Android group. It's available for devices running Android OS 2.1 or higher.

Be warned, though: It's not a complete experience yet. The LinkedIn team has warned us (on multiple occasions) that LinkedIn for Android is a "very early beta." This is an early public beta that the team launched before the holidays due to incredible user demand.

The app does everything you'd expect. It lets you browse your LinkedIn contacts, search for potential new connections, accept or reject invitations and more. While the app is nowhere near as functional as its iPhone counterpart, the business social network does tout a few of its features as superior. A big one is search, which the company says, "is the fastest search experience on any mobile platform."

Still, the app lacks some basic functionality. The big strike against LinkedIn's new mobile app is that you cannot access your inbox from the app. The company promises that this feature, along with sharing and commenting on updates and the addition of the "People You May Know" feature, will be added to the "very early Beta" within a few months.

It's interesting the company has decided to rush this application out before it was fully formed, but it's been more than two years since the iPhone app launched, so we understand the urgency of getting an application into the marketplace. Regardless, the app should be more than enough to satisfy the average Android user until LinkedIn can get it out of beta.

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